In the years since World War II, the literature of Los Angeles, like much about the city, has shifted, becoming less a literature of exile than one of place. Weschler- one of our foremost practitioners of literary nonfiction discusses this definitive period in Los Angeles' literary life.

Part of Pacific Standard Time, Art in LA 1945-1980

Participant(s) Bio

Lawrence Weschler, native of Los Angeles, is commonly regarded as one of the foremost practioners of literary nonfiction. His essays long appeared in the New Yorker, and one of his most recent books, Everything That Rises, out of McSweeney's, was celebrated with the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism. Weschler's latest collection, Uncanny Valley: Adventures in the Narrative, a companion to the earlier Vermeer in Bosnia, continues the author's distinctive blending of political and cultural themes. He currently directs the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU.

David L. Ulin is a book critic for the Los Angeles Times. From 2005-2010 he served as the Times' book editor. He is the author of The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time and The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith, and the editor of Another City: Writing from Los Angeles and Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a 2002 California Book Award. His essays and criticism are widely published.